


Tales of Undomiel

by NorroenDyrd



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adoption, Babies, Cadash-Centric, Dorks in Love, Dwarf/Elf Relationship(s), Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Inquisitor Backstory, Non-Canon Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Not Canon Compliant, Parent Lavellan, Pre-Canon, Pregnancy, Pregnant Lavellan, Prologue, Second Chances, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 17:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13036263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: Stories of various length, as well as artwork, dedicated to Undomiel, a rather unusual Lavellan Inquisitor that was adopted into her clan and raised as an elf but is, in fact, a dwarf. To complicate matters further, she is also a single mother.





	1. Undomiel's Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Summary of Chapter One:
> 
> Undomiel Lavellan, the future Inquisitor, performs her duty to the clan just as anyone else; she has gotten her vallaslin to represent her role as a hunter, and bonded with the Keeper's First, whose child she is now expecting. She considers herself as much of a Dalish as the rest of her kin - but some may disagree. For even though she was raised as a da'len of the Elvhenan, she is a dwarf by blood. This is the beginning of her tale.

The young elf moves forward, swiftly, noiselessly, the soles of his bare-toed feet and the tip of his gnarly, branching staff mage's barely making an imprint on the patchy, greyish carpet of snow that covers the round porous rocks and the streaks of pale, lace-like, dried-up moss, and grows thicker, fluffier, and cleaner the higher uphill he climbs. His eyes, light-brown like the shell of a forest nut, are narrowed intently on his angular, freckled face, as he gazes fixedly ahead at some remote goal that he is supposed to reach.  
  
Absorbed as he is by tracing his path, he does not notice another face bobbing up and down in the shrubs in his wake. Although broader, paler, and with rounder contours, this face is marked by bold tattoo lines, just like his. Except that the patterns etched into the young travelling mage's skin (in dark-red ink to match the frizzy strands of hair that flutter in the breeze under the rim of his dark-green hood, with slits for ears) resemble the crown of a tree that has shed all its leaves at the start of the cold season. Whereas the tattoos on the second face are dark-blue, highlighting their bearer's lyrium-vivid eyes, and the symbol that they depict is more like a bow, with the string pulled back and an ornate arrow poised for a shot, its tip rising between the bearer's thin, inky eyebrows.  
  
This other face moves in sync with the elf's climb, albeit at a slower pace, vanishing into the undergrowth and then reappearing again, the lyrium eyes following his progress with as much concentration as he follows the mountain ascent. With the rest of the face's owner being blocked from view, one could assume that they are an elf, just like the gangly, grasshopper-legged ginger mage that they are hurrying after. A member of a Dalish clan, their role in the nomadic community revealed through the traditional vallaslin tattoos: a bow for Andruil, pagan goddess of the hunt - while the tree crown spreading over the redhead's jutting cheekbones and tall forehead stands for Mythal, the most revered member of the ancient elven pantheon, and singles him out as either a present or future Keeper, guardian of the what little ancestral lore that has survived the centuries of conflict with humans... with the shemlen.  
  
But when the hunter with Andruil's tattoos finally decides that they cannot keep up with the mage any longer, and stumble forth, tearing through the shrubbery with many an annoyed 'Oof', and then call for their quarry urgently to wait up, it becomes apparent that this is not an elf at all.  
  
The blue-inked face belongs to a dwarf - precisely the sort of short, square-figured dwarf you expect to see gliding with leisurely dignity down the maze-like, lava-lit streets of the great underground city of Orzammar, or under the vaulted ceilings of the Ambassadorium in Tevinter, bedecked in jewellery as a symbol of their high caste. Or maybe working a smoky, stuffy forge somewhere by the riverside in a human village, barred by custom from returning to the home of their ancestors ever again, but still making do, a smug grin splitting across their soot-stained face when they remind themselves that none of these tall, lumbering nugheads will ever craft anything to rival what comes out from beneath their skilled callused hands. Or maybe skulking through shadows, their leather armour almost unseen beneath a layer of endless belts with jangling vials of bottled smoke hanging off them, and bulging pockets and pouches, and straps of soft material with lockpicks of all shapes and sizes tucked into them - the perfect gear for a thief and a smuggler of surface curious and the so very coveted lyrium.  
  
But this dwarf is neither a wealthy merchant, or a maker of fine crafts, or a casteless smuggler. This dwarf is someone utterly unexpected.  
  
They... Or rather, she - for when she calls after the elf again, flapping her arms ahead of her, she exclaims, between two wheezes,  
  
'I said, wait up, Suledin! Slow down! Don't torment your wife like this!'  
  
So yes, she is wearing the same green tunic and hood as Suledin the mage, and the same knee-high boots, woven out of slivers of beast hide and leaving her toes bare - all fashioned to fit her stocky proportions... And accommodate for the fact that she is heavy with child.  
  
The soft round curve of her stomach, which she instinctively cups with one hand after staggering out of the leafy background onto the path, while supporting her tired back with the other hand, must be one of the main reasons why the elf responds so fretfully to her arrival, whipping around on his heels, his mouth turning into a squishy oval that emits frantic squeaking noises, and his fingers clawing at his temples.  
  
'Ma vhenan!' he gasps, addressing the dwarf with the most tender, most intimate endearment, which not a lot the Stone's children must hear from a Dalish.  
  
'What are you doing so far away from camp?! It's too dangerous out here for you - for both of you!'  
  
'Eh,' she shrugs nonchalantly. 'A bunch of shems in robes and armour rampaging through the woods... Can't be any more dangerous than standing around during the dalen archery practice'.  
  
Suledin cannot help but smile at his wife's harmless mockery of their younger kinsmen's marksmanship. His ears slide slightly upwards when he does that, their tips turning a subtle shade of pink - which makes the dwarf give him a long, quiet, fond look, tiny sparkles swimming in her widened pupils. This has to be one of the little quirks she loves the most about Suledin... But the rosy haze of affection is soon dispelled: after an instance of dreamy silence, with them both gazing into each other's eyes, the young mage jerks his head from side to side, as if to shake himself into a more alert state, and knits his eyebrows.  
  
'Jests aside, Undomiel,' he says sternly, bending his wiry frame almost twofold to reach down to her and nuzzle against her face. 'Please head back now. I will see you after I do what the Keeper asked me and check what this... rampaging is all about. I think they are all heading to that big temple on the mountaintop - for some kind of moot, maybe? Shouldn't take me more than a few hours to listen in'.  
  
'I can help,' Undomiel insists softly, weaving her fingers through his. 'We are a team, remember? The Keeper's First and a Half? We have always done this sort of thing together before... Gathering lore, uncovering secrets... This...'  
  
Something in her voice breaks, and she has to bite into her lips until she draws blood before she can continue.  
  
'This is the first time I stay behind while you go off on a task for the Keeper...'  
  
'And you...'  
  
Suledin's frown deepens, another squeak thrashing at the back of his stick-like throat.  
  
'You do not want to spend time among the clan without me...'  
  
Undomiel tucks a fringe of black hair under her hood, her gaze travelling past her husband. When she speaks again, she changes her voice into a comical croak, mimicking an older clan mate - but there is no laughter in her blue eyes.  
  
'The blood of the People runs scarce enough as it is, and the First decides to throw away his duty... just like that... Every pure Elvhen baby is a treasure, and Suledin's child will not be Elvhen... Keeper Deshanna may have allowed the dwarf to get vallaslin, but she'll never be one of us... Just because the clan adopted her as a babe doesn't mean she can forget her place...'  
  
She closes her eyes and hangs her head with a sigh.  
  
'It's so much easier to stand it all when you are there...'  
  
'I am sorry, ma vhenan,' Suledin murmurs tearfully, nuzzling her again. 'And they say the shemlen are narrow-minded... Of course you are one of us - never doubt it! And our child will be the pride of the People! That's why we're calling them Solas, remember?'  
  
He gives her another smile, his blush deepening as she swats playfully at his moving ears - and finishes in a soothing whisper, planting a kiss or three on her cheeks whenever he makes a pause,  
  
'I apologize for traipsing off so thoughtlessly! Of course you can accompany me, if that makes you feel safer! And once we return, I will be giving all those old elfroot-chewers a big talking-to! I am soon to be their Keeper, dammit!'  
  
As if to emphasize his words, a small amulet slides out of his tunic's collar: a circle of dark wood, carved with the same branch-like patterns that adorn his face, all surrounding the silhouette of a fantastical being that seems to be a cross between a woman and a bird... or maybe a dragon.  
  
The same amulet that, untouched by devouring flame due to the enchantment it bears, will be found dangling off the neck of a charred, disfigured corpse as Seeker Pentaghast from the human Chantry leads a blank-faced, numb-looking pregnant dwarven woman, with Dalish tattoos and a sizzling magical scar across her palm, towards the broiling, demon-spewing green Breach that laid waste to the Temple of Sacred Ashes.


	2. Restless Nights (Tumblr Drabble)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Combining the duties of a Herald and a young mother is not easy; but thankfully Undomiel has a supportive friend.

Her Suledin is gone now, reduced to an oily, peeling, charred carcass in the crater of the Conclave explosion; and even her brilliant plan to steal the time magic amulet from the Tevinter magister and bring her vhenan back had to be scrapped, because the cost of such magic is far, far too high. Now all she has left on him is their child, a baby girl whom she carried under her heart to the Conclave, and who saw the light of day for the first time shortly after the Breach was stabilized.

Undomiel visits her as often as she can in between missions, to hold her, to feed her, to bathe her, to rock her back to sleep murmuring a tender lullaby in Elvhen (she mispronounces half the words, as Solas informs her, but the baby does not seem to care, smiling at her mother toothlessly as she drifts off).

Warden Blackwall, Undomiel’s friend - still a friend at this point, because it’s too soon, far too soon after she clenched herself into a hunchbacked ball on the floor of Redcliffe castle’s throne room, the shattered fragments of the magister’s amulet scattered around her, sobbing uncontrollably and screaming for a husband that is lost to her forever - often finds her at one in the morning, two in the morning, three in the morning, dumbed by lack of sleep and swaying slightly on her knees in front of her daughter’s cradle.

‘Please rest, my lady,’ he reminds her softly, as she looks up at him, eyes red and wild in the centre of bruised dark circles. ‘We have an important mission tomorrow. The Chantry sisters will be happy to…’

'The Chantry sisters will have plenty of time while I am away,’ Undomiel slurs, tears beginning to stream down her face for lack of blinking. 'I just… I want her to know that I love her…’

'I think she does,’ Blackwall whispers brushing his hand along the side of the cradle (which he himself crafted, adding woodland animal motifs to the best of his ability as a little surprise for Undomiel).

And, without waking up, the baby grabs hold of his finger.


	3. Time Thief (Illustration)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Undomiel as she is tempted to steal the time magic amulet from Alexius and attempt to bring back her beloved Suledin.


	4. The Herald's Treasure (Illustration)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As she stays behind to face down Corypheus during In Your Heart Shall Burn, Undomiel entrusts her baby to Blackwall, her friend and eventual second love.

**Author's Note:**

> Undomiel goes into labour shortly after stabilizing the Breach, and does indeed name her daughter Solas (much to Sera's amusement).


End file.
